What It Takes to Go from Scientist to CEO: Watch Our Behind the Book Event
Like so many people, Caltech geochemist Jess Adkins spent the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic wondering what to do with that time at home. Then, while plugging away on papers in his garage, inspiration struck. He realized that his chemistry work could make a real difference in addressing climate change, which he calls “the problem of our generation.”
“One of the truly amazing things about Caltech that I find inspiring all the time, is that it's really our job to think of the most important thing that we could possibly do,” Adkins said during the Behind the Book: Caltech Magazine Edition event held May 31 in Beckman Auditorium. “We had had a series of results in the lab … that led toward us realizing that we had a shot at sequestering CO2 at scale.”
In the time since that moment of garage inspiration, Adkins has become the CEO of a sustainability start-up called Calcarea, which plans to clean the flue gas from cargo ships in order to permanently store carbon dioxide in the ocean by mimicking natural processes that make carbon dioxide react with limestone to produce bicarbonate ions.
His work is described in the Spring 2023 issue of Caltech magazine in a story by Lori Dajose (BS ’15), who moderated the event. Adkins was joined by Julie Schoenfeld, Caltech’s entrepreneur-in-residence for physical sciences, who described how she helps entrepreneurs navigate the process of taking their research from the lab to commercial success, which includes determining what aspects of their work will most excite investors and venture capitalists.
“You have to ask yourself, what problem are you trying to solve?” Schoenfeld said. “And I spend a lot of time trying to sort through or help inventors sort through that question. We have a saying here that these are all hammers looking for nails, in that is they have a great piece of technology, but we're not quite sure what to do with it. So, the common theme that I look for is: What problem are you trying to solve? How is it being solved today? And why can you do it better?”
Watch the full event above or on YouTube.